More Than a Little

I had a lot of fun today.

My husband had today off work, and we were gone all weekend, so I hadn’t really had a chance to do any shopping, so I headed out this morning while he stayed home with the baby.

I stopped at K-Mart first.

Total: $1.02. (More details on how I did that.)

Then I went to Walgreens and.. oh, what fun I had.  I messed up my plans a little bit but it worked out alright. I did five transactions total–I stopped at a second Walgreens to pick up some more glucosamine.

Total OOP:  $43.44 (6.26, 6.54, 5.44, 25.20, 0)
RR used: $21 (3, 3, 5, 10)
Total Spent: $64.44
RR Received: $41 (5, 3, 10, 3, 5, 5, 10)
Caregiver’s Marketplace Rebate: $3
Total Cost: $20.44

Eh. More than I would have liked but seriously, how much can I complain when ONE bottle of that glucosamine should have cost me more than that with tax? (And besides, I get $6 out of the diapers in the yard sale…)

Moving right along! I then went to Rite Aid, where I waited and waited and waited for them to figure out my transaction, and finally left my $70 order there on the counter without buying a single thing. I hate that place.  I should just leave it alone but I feel compelled to pick things up when they are going to pay me to do so… if they ever figure out how to operate their cash registers.  Apparently they are unfamiliar with the concept of knowingly using a B1G1 coupon on a B1G1 sale. I say "knowingly" because I have done it more than once at this particular store in the past, but today, I was using a raincheck, and it just boggled their tiny little minds. Pardon the snarkiness. (I may also have ridiculed them to the staff at CVS just a little.)

After that, I went to CVS, and did not really stay too long.  I had already used up my shopping time and then some, thanks to Rite Aid’s incompetence, and so I hurried.  I had wanted to get my pictures done for the free photo book advertised this week, but I had so much going on earlier this week that I just couldn’t get it together in time. So… I asked if I could purchase the book in advance and then come back and put it together later. They were perfectly fine with that. Yay for procrastination!  Also, the limit is actually five instead of one–you can tell by the way it appears on the bottom of the receipt.  After I was done, I asked her if it would be okay to do five more for my mom’s card. I do use her card sometimes but I don’t tend to make a big production out of it because it makes me feel bad.  She was happy to let me do it, though, so I will have TEN free photo books altogether, already paid for.  Though… it occurs to me that I will really only be able to do this when that one cashier is there because I have no proof that I didn’t receive the books that I paid for.  I hope that doesn’t turn out to be a problem, but I’m pretty confident that she’ll remember.  And, if nothing else… buying them helped me use a $4/20 and a $3/$15.

Not pictured would be the ten free photobooks that I have not actually created yet. I wish I could do them online. That would make it easier.

Total OOP: 15.68 (1.40, 3.16, 0, 11.12)
ECBs used: 63.46 (10, 1, .99, 4.98, 20, 4, 20, .50, .99, 1)
ECBs received: $83.90 (7.99,  4, 31.96, 23.97, 15.98)*
Caregiver’s Marketplace: $0.75
Total Cost: $5.51 profit

Also, I am really happy about the photo books. I love photo books.  We ordered a couple last year for gifts at Christmas and they turned out so well!  I hope these do too. 

*I REALLY don’t recommend that you buy them in the same transaction like I did. I was compensating for a rushed decision last month that ended up giving me two $20 ECBs that I needed to get rid of before they expired next week.

And, then I went home to put a very sleepy baby down for her nap.  That would have been the end to this post, but we had to do some grocery shopping in the afternoon because we were completely out of milk, and I was pretty pleased with our Kroger trip so I went ahead and took a picture. 

That is a $14.51 shopping trip, folks, containing $4 worth of grapes, five bags of cheese, six packages of fruit cups, a pack of yogurt (WITHOUT A COUPON, gasp!), milk, bread, sour cream, ten packages of gloves, Chex Mix (which the e-coupons didn’t work for, darn it, and I should really have only bought one anyway) and assorted other groceries.  That makes it an 86% savings.  Muahahaa.  That’s actually not counting the $0.75 Caregiver’s Marketplace rebate for the Pull-ups.. that brings it closer to 87%. Not bad, not bad. :)

Small disclaimer: I started on the shopping while M went to Lowe’s, and when he came in, he stopped to talk to the newspaper guy set up at the front of the store giving away free papers.  To make a long story short, we ended up signing up for the Lexington newspaper, weekends only, and they gave me a $10 Kroger gift card for signing up.  They also offer a Sunday only edition that I intend to call and switch to it pretty much immediately (they didn’t offer a gift card for signing up for that one.)  I’m not sure how long I will keep the service because I much prefer the Louisville newspaper coupons. The paper peddler swore to me that the delivery paper you receive is a better paper and has better coupons in it. I have serious doubts but we’ll see. I mainly wanted the gift card. :)   Anyway, that’s just to say that $10 of the savings above are from signing up for a newspaper subscription.  Since it was a Kroger card, I’m counting it for today’s savings.

Now I’m exhausted, both from my insane day of shopping and from writing this post out.  It was fun, though. :)